What Am I To You?
by Jinxing The World
Summary: Fionna finally discovers what it means to be in love with someone. Fiolee (Fionna x Marshall Lee) One Shot. Rated T just to be safe.


My first Adventure time fic in a while. I hope you enjoy it!

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"What am I to you?" Fionna shouted staring him down fiercely with her tear filled eyes. She was tired of the endless monotony, the I'm too old for you, the whole idea of their situation. "I go to war for you every single day, and what do you do? Nothing! You sit there on your high horse looking down at me. No, more. I'm young, but I know something important that you just don't seem to understand. I have self-worth! So that's it, I'm done groveling, looking up to you like some kind of god. You're just a man Gumball, nothing more. Nothing less." She walked away from him, cake in tow, and left the candy kingdom. She didn't even look back. She didn't want to see the look on his face, she didn't want to see him at all. Her heart was broken, for the first time in her life she was crushed, beaten, broken and worst of all, she didn't see herself just bouncing back this time.

It was some nerve Gumball had, telling her off that way. Why was it any of his concern who she liked or disliked? What right did he have to question the time that she spent with another man? He didn't even love her. She realized it now, Gumball had never loved her, he had only wanted to keep her as an asset, a trophy to display. She knew that he thought of it all as friendship, but she was too hurt to think the way he did. She had a mind heavy with question and realization that went along with a heart twice as heavy with feelings and regrets. She kept asking herself the save questions over and over. Should she have been so hard on him? Should she give him a second chance? Was he really jealous? Did she ever really even love him at all? She just didn't even know anymore.

Cake didn't say a word; she didn't even stretch to take the fast way home with Fionna on her back. She just walked along slowly in silence. Her baby was hurt. Her sister was crying and there was nothing to be done. She had half a mind to stretch all the way back to the candy kingdom and give Gumball her two cents, but she knew in her heart that it was the wrong thing to do. This was Fionna's fight, and for the first time ever, she was going to have to let her fight it alone.

As they approached the Tree House, cake turned to enter, but Fionna continued on. They didn't say a word to each other, and even though the walk there had been long, Fionna continued along the path wordlessly. Cake entered the house as Fionna walked on. She knew that there was no stopping that girl once she was on a mission, and there was no use trying. To offer her a lift to wherever she was going would only result in offending her, and so there was nothing to be done. Cake sat in the highest room of the house and watched her walk away through the window until she couldn't even see her anymore. She whispered a soft prayer to herself, "Glob, keep my sister safe."

Fionna walked quickly with an even pace. She knew where she was going and her mind was on a mission. There was no stopping her, no end until her goal was met. It was simply the type of girl she was, and the type of woman she was becoming. Though she was now sixteen years old, she was still young at heart, however her body was becoming more and more curvaceous by the day. She was becoming a young woman with the heart and body to match. She was also developing feelings she could not explain and fiery emotions to back them up. She knew what she was feeling was called love, but she had thought it would be so much different than it was.

She had always thought that love was what she felt for Gumball. The way she felt for Gumball was a feeling that was difficult to describe. She had a need to keep him safe and out of harm's way, and a need to have him in her life somehow. She also felt as though she needed him to like her and needed to be in his presence. She also felt embarrassed when she was around him. She felt shy, and coy… but now she was feeling something completely different. Feeling this new sensation allowed Fionna to realize that what she felt before was not love… but like and friendship confused and befuddled by youth.

What she felt now, though, she knew deep in her heart was love. She felt like she couldn't be without the person she felt this for, but at the same time couldn't stand to be around him. She felt like an equal in his presence and never felt nervous with him. He was one of her best friends and she knew that he would never ever deny her in the many ways that Gumball had. She was attracted to him in ways that not even she could fully describe or understand. All she knew was that she could see his house now, and it made her heart leap.

Her fist banged hard against the door. "Marshall Lee open your door now!" She shouted commandingly into his house. It was starting to get dark so she knew he was already up. She pounded on the entrance again this time shouting, "Come on Marshall, I know you're in there!" But there was no reply. The house was dark and quiet, and there was no one there as far as she could tell. She punched the wooden entryway so hard her fist hurt and shouted once more, "Damn it Marshall! Let me in!" But there was still no reply, and the strong adventurer slid her back down the door in defeat. She pulled her knees to her chest and cried softly, not because he wasn't home, but instead because she was finally feeling just how heavy it was to carry around the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, hot, thick, tears that ran like a river down her cheeks. When had everything changed? When had life gotten so complex? She felt defeated, like she shouldn't have yelled at Prince Gumball, like she shouldn't have ever loved anyone to begin with. Why had he asked her that question? What did he have to say 'Aren't you in love with Marshall Lee?' Why did everything have to fall apart in front of her eyes when she had nothing in her hands to help her pick up the pieces?

"Fionna?" Came a familiar voice from just a foot away.

Marshall looked down at the adventuress crying quietly on his porch. Something had to be seriously wrong for Fionna to be crying, especially if she were alone. He looked from side to side and noticed that cake was nowhere to be seen. He rarely ever saw the two of them apart, and if he ever did, it was when Fionna was alone at the tree house. So a lone Fionna, crying on his porch, at sundown really begged the question: What was wrong? He knew something serious had gone down, but he wasn't exactly sure he wanted to know what "it" was by the way she was screaming and slamming on his door. She was crazy mad, and he wasn't quite sure how he would deal with an angry Fionna by himself. However, she was his friend, and he knew that he needed to try.

"Why are you crying?" He asked with one eyebrow quirked in curiosity. He wasn't quite sure how to comfort a girl, but he imagined it was a fair enough question to start out with. After all, how was he going to help if he didn't even know what was going on? "That's like totally crazy."

Fionna looked up and tried to wipe the worst of the tears from her eyes. "I wasn't crying." She said fiercely, the hurt she felt still weighing heavy on her heart. She didn't want to admit anything to him that would make her seem weak, but at the same time she wanted nothing more than to simply break down.

He knew he had struck a nerve there, so he simply reworded his question. "I mean what's wrong Fionna." Again, he believed it was a good question, being that to get to an end there needed to be a beginning.

Fionna answered his question with a question of her own, "Why do you care Marshall?" She had never known him to care about her feelings before. He was a physical guy with little to no publicly seen emotional displays. The only feelings he ever seemed to display were those of hate and resentment. It was rare to see any more than that out of him, so why would he care, and more importantly, would he even understand?

"Well you're crying on my porch for one." He brought up the crying again accidentally, but even when he caught himself, he didn't try to change what he had said. It was the truth, and if she wasn't going to at least give him the truth, she could leave now.

Fionna looked down at her feet. There was no denying her tears, even if she wished to do so. He knew her too well. She hadn't even noticed how well he knew her until now, so she simply looked at her feet out of embarrassment.

"Fionna, for real I'm going to ask you one more time what's wrong, and if you don't at least say something, I'm going inside without you." He looked at her, still softly crying and now looking at her feet. He felt pained by her sadness. He never really had felt emotional pain like this before, physical pain was something he dealt with well, but this… this was completely different. He tried to shake it off and quickly added an end statement, "I'm being serious Fionna. Take it or leave it. What's wrong?"

She looked up at him, into his black eyes. She stared deep down inside of him, into the soul he didn't believe was there, and into the heart that no longer beat. Though she saw nothing yet, words escaped her lips before even her mind thought them. "What am I to you?" She was still crying, but her voice was strong and clear. "Marshall Lee, what am I to you?"

He couldn't believe what she had just said, was that really what this was over? He would have sighed in relief if he hadn't realized what would come next. He knew that he needed to come up with an answer, and fast. He knew what he wanted to say, but had no words with which to say it. When he thought of words they came too fast and too many or too slow and too few to tell her how he felt. And feel for her he did. There was something about her that made him want to feel again, to truly feel with his heart, mind, body, and soul. To feel in a way that he had never felt before. He wanted to tell her everything, and he wanted her to know that she didn't need to cry anymore, but it wasn't working.

"Come inside Fi." He said in a voice so soft that she could hardly hear him. She had never known for him to sound that way, and was quite frankly shocked enough to follow him inside without question, argument, or insistence that he answer her question first and foremost.

Once he had her settled on his couch he picked up his axe base and began to play. He strummed cords that were slow and smooth, but he neither spoke nor sang. It was a soft song, like a ballad, and it was something previously unheard by anyone but him. Once he had finished, he spoke again in the same soft tone he had before. "Do you understand now Fi?"

She shook her head no. She had sat there giving him her undivided and silent attention as he played. Her eyes never left him, not even once as he played, and her ears strained trying to hear his explanation, but no words came.

"Listen again…" He repeated. "Listen to the chords. They tell the story."

She focused again on listening to him play. She was speechless at his displays of softness and patience. It was a softer side of Marshall that she had never seen before. Just like how seeing her sitting and crying on his porch was probably the first time he had seen a softer side of her. Listening to him play, and this time watching his facial expression as he played, she finally got it. The song began with slow, tired, sad sounding notes, that eventually clashed with happier sounding notes. For a short time the chords fought each other for dominance, making a sound more cacophonous than pleasant. However moments after this, the same notes meshed and blended until a slow, happy sound was all that remained. From that moment on it sounded like a ballad, a love song.

"It's the story of how we met." She said quietly, sounding just as soft as him. She had taken a long time to realize it, but now that she knew, it all made sense.

"You're right." He said playing the song once more, while explaining the separate parts. "In the beginning, It's me. I'm lonely and sad because I've travelled the world alone. There were plenty of places to stay, but no place to call my home." As he spoke the words, they went along with the rhythm of the song. His monologue were the words the song never had.

"Then one day I met a girl and her cat. We fought and clashed because they lived in my house. I wanted them gone, but once they left, the tree house felt empty."

"At first I didn't understand, but after that I ran to find the little blonde girl and her cat. We fought again, but in the end, I found that I wanted them as friends."

"We became close and after a while I felt that I finally had a home. I didn't live with the girl or cat, but I knew that I was part of their lives, and that was enough for me. Until recently."

With his last two words the song cut out. "Don't you see what you are to me Fionna?" He looked at the small, fragile human girl on his couch. In the years that he had known her, she had grown so much. She was becoming a woman, a beautiful, strong, independent woman that he knew didn't really need him at all. But the moment he saw her on his porch, he realized something very important. She may not really need him, but he truly did need her. "You're my everything."

Fionna blushed. "I came to you for a reason Marshall." She said softly. "I came here to work things out, because today something happened… and I wanted to let you know something important."

Marshall nodded, he knew there was a reason for her being there, and while she was now calmed down, he was glad to hear whatever was actually wrong. He floated over to the couch and sat down beside her, more than ready to hear her tail.

"Today Gumball sent me out on a mission, and when I came back… well I asked him the same thing I just asked you, and I never gave him the chance to answer. I just walked away."

Marshall looked at her, puzzled. "Why wouldn't you let him answer?"

"Because I realized I didn't care anymore. He said something that made me mad. He asked me something that was no business of his, and for that I left, and I don't feel like going back for a long time."

"What did he ask you?" Marshall asked now even more confused, and yet somehow a tad bit happy at the same time. He had never really liked the way that Gumball had treated Fionna. He always acted like such a wad, making her do things for him constantly like he was some kind of princess that couldn't handle herself. It always disgusted him.

"He asked me if I loved you." She spoke frankly. This is what she came here to tell him, and Glob damn it, she was going to tell him!

Marshall swore that he felt his heart skip a beat, an impossibility because it wasn't beating at all, however he knew that whatever she said next would change his life forever. "What did you tell him?"

"Nothing. I just left."

He was crushed. He had gotten his hopes up far too high to think that she was actually going to tell him her feelings. After all, she was simply confiding in him as a friend. He knew he should be happy about that, but his feeling were hurt by it never the less.

"But I came here because I realized that, after thinking about it for a very long time, the answer was yes. Yes, Marshall Lee, I'm in love with you. I don't understand why, because you're a total jerk to me like half the time, and you scare cake, and you're like a chaotic neutral, but I do love you." She blushed red. She knew that it was odd to just jump out with her feelings in this way, but she needed to get it off her chest. "I know I'm a lot younger than you, and that you don't feel the same, but I had to let you kno…"

He cut her off by putting his hand over her mouth. "Fi, shut up. Like right now, for real." He quickly moved his hand and replaced it with his lips. He kissed her gently, knowing that it was her first kiss that he was stealing. He also knew that if he had anything to say about it, there would be many more kisses to follow. "First off, biologically I'm eighteen. That makes me a little less than two years older than you physically. Secondly I do feel the same, and third don't get why I love you either, but I do… I really do Fi."

"You're a jerk Marshall." Fionna said, still blushing as she snuggled her way into his arms.

"Love you too." He murmured softly to her as he tucked her in close to him. It was getting dark, and she was getting tired. He was wide awake of course, but all the emotional insanity had worn his out too. A nap would do them both so good, and he was not ready to let his little adventuress go any time soon.

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If you liked this you may my other two adventure time Fionna x Marshall Lee stories. Feel free to check them out! Also comments, faves, and follows are always appreciated! -Em


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